Review: ‘Lake of Death’ (‘De dødes tjern’) – A Norwegian Ghost Story

July 20, 2020

Lake of Death (originally titled De dødes tjern) is a Shudder exclusive and 2019 remake of the delightfully creepy-looking black and white 1958 film, Lake of the Dead.

The film follows Lillian (Iben Akerlie) and four of her friends, who decide to spend one last weekend hurrah at her family’s cabin, one year after her brother mysteriously disappears there. The trip starts off in a fun manner as spooky stories about the locale are shared, swimming and partying take place, and the group breathes in the beautiful lakeside surroundings. As the days wind down, strange happenings seem to be afoot. Bumps in the night, shadowy figures, screams, and creepy journals are just some of things keeping Lillian and her friends awake at night. Is someone playing practical jokes, or has a malevolent force decided it’s time for the unwanted guests to leave?

Let me preface this review by fully admitting that being an American, sometimes it can be extremely difficult for me to decide whether foreign actors are strong or not. Sometimes it’s rather easy to spot weak acting, but if nothing is glaring, I assume that it’s good, or at the very least decent. Most of the acting in Lake of Death seemed up to par, although a bit of the dialogue felt a little theatrical. There seemed to be a little too much time between sentences in some of the scenes, as if the actors were waiting for the audience to absorb each sentence individually before moving on to the next. Sometimes it just didn’t feel natural. No one was bad, but no one stood out, either.

This is the third feature film from Norwegian director Nini Bull Robsahm. She does a fantastic job with long, beautiful environmental shots. Norway is a beautiful place, and I’m always a fan of European films taking advantage of their gorgeous filming locations. If you’re creating a lower budget film, relying on a natural set is always going to bring better results than a poorly built fabricated one. Honestly, I have no issues with any of Robsahm’s camera work. Kudos there.

Without going into too much detail, the film presents itself as a supernatural ghost/malevolent presence type of movie. As a massive horror fan, films in this genre seldomly differ from one another when it comes to typical movie tropes. A man scares himself in the mirror. Doors slowly open by themselves. A recording picks up some creepy voices. How many times have you seen that? Unfortunately, the film relies a little too much on those tropes while weaving in some intense underwater scare scenes. The filming of these scenes is extremely well done and left me going, “Why can’t I have more of that? I want more stuff like that!” Robsahm does a great job of building us a legitimately spooky location and gives a nice local legend to pair with it. I was disappointed that we didn’t get more scenes featuring those things and fewer shadows and floor creaks.

The story itself was run-of-the-mill. I found myself making the correct guesses of twists and turns less than halfway through. This comes from remaking a semi-popular foreign horror movie from the 1950’s, which have undoubtedly inspired many, many ghost film directors over the years. We’ve just seen this before, in several different films. It didn’t offer anything different or exciting, which is a bummer, because as a fan of ghost movies, and I very much hype up the ones that offer something new.

As far as effects go, there weren’t many to name. Some cool stuff was done with murky lake water and blood during dream sequences, but most of the effects were limited to cosmetics with weird contacts and some decent dead body makeup. The score felt almost nonexistent, which was super surprising coming from John Debney (The Greatest Showman, The Passion of the Christ, The Jungle Book), who does amazing work.

Overall, I just can’t get over the hump to recommend it for viewing. It is possible the film may appeal to a younger audience that doesn’t have as much experience with ghost-y tropes. However, Nini Bull Robsahm does give us some truly great camera work, and it’s great to see more women taking the reigns in horror. Hopefully, this is just a stepping-stone on her way to creating something excellent!